Chapter 28

28

A manda

Something was wrong. Between Elias’s scowl and rigid stance, it was clear he was upset. As he paced and talked on the phone, a part of me wanted to go and see what was wrong. Being here with Ryan was the only thing keeping me from getting up from the bench.

When Ryan asked me to meet him at a Caribbean food truck for lunch, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see Elias here. I’d been so excited to try the lamb, plantains, and cabbage, and now, I could only pray Elias didn’t see us. If he did, I hoped he wouldn’t cause a scene.

“You good?” Ryan checked, gripping my shaking leg.

“Yes. I’m good. I saw someone I know.”

His eyes shifted as he scanned the empty space. When they landed on Elias, he looked at me.

“That’s your baby daddy, right?”

Of course he remembered him from the pictures I’d shown him of EJ.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to go speak?”

My head shook. “No. Maybe. I—”

Our eyes locked. His frown melted away…until he saw Ryan next to me on the bench. As Elias walked over to us, I held my breath.

“Wassup, Mandy?” He spoke, giving me a kiss on the forehead.

“Hi. This is Ryan. Ryan, this is EJ’s dad, Elias.”

Elias chuckled as they shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you, Ryan. I saw how you protected my girl. I appreciate you for that.”

“It’s all love.” Ryan looked at me with a sneaky smirk that made my heart skip a beat. “I feel like I should thank you for letting Amanda go so I could experience this great woman.”

“As long as you know it’s temporary.”

They shared a soft laugh; meanwhile, I was almost at the point of sweating and shaking. It seemed like things were going well though.

“I hear you.”

“I’ll see you later, Mandy.”

“Wait.” I stood as Elias turned to walk away. “Um…are you okay? You looked upset.”

“I gotta handle some shit after I leave here, then I’ll be good.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

He looked from me to Ryan and shook his head. “I’m good, bae. Enjoy your lunch.”

I had to force myself to look away as he walked away. My curiosity was going to have me wondering what was going on with him until we talked—if we talked. Plus, I wanted to know he was okay.

“Your whole everything just changed, sweetheart. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

I hoped shaking my head would lead to me being able to shake the worry away too.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. If it isn’t, he can talk to his girl.”

Ryan’s chuckle was not of amusement. “Y’all funny.”

Rolling my eyes, I leaned against the table and casually looked around to see if Elias was still outside.

“It’s clear you want to be with him,” Ryan continued.

No part of me felt like sparing his feelings by denying the truth. Nothing serious would come from our time together anyway. Besides, I’d been honest with him from the jump—even when I didn’t want to be. He knew all about my crazy situation with Elias just like I knew about his drama with Candice.

“Yeah, but we can’t be together.”

“Why not?”

“He’s with someone, and even if he wasn’t, I hurt him. I don’t think there’s no coming back from that.”

Ryan’s face twisted as his head shook. “That mane wants you, girl.”

“He doesn’t want me.”

“Yes, he does, Amanda.”

“He wants sex and a good coparenting relationship, but he doesn’t want me .”

“His energy screamed you were his. I don’t know why y’all won’t just say that, but he does want you. If you didn’t see that in his eyes, you blind.”

I couldn’t stomach getting my hopes up just to be disappointed, so I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I don’t want to talk about him. We already have limited time. I don’t want to waste it talking about that.”

“What do you want to spend it talking about then?”

“Literally anything else.”

His chuckle made me laugh before he kissed me softly. Slipping his fingers through my hair, he used it to tilt my head. As he eyed every inch of my face, Ryan shook his head.

“I wish I had the time to explore every facet of you to see why he ain’t willing to let you go.”

“That would have been nice, but since we only have days our kids are at school until you deploy, I just need you to fuck me like you love me, even though you never will.”

“Oh, I can definitely do that.”

Our lips connected again, but we pulled away when our number was called. After he grabbed our food, I looked around. Sadness filled me because Elias was gone.